I had a source server system that had two physical drives - C and D. The C drive housed system files - i.e. Windows, Program Files, Documents and Settings. The D drive housed the data. We initially set the HyperV with two VHDs in the virtual machine - a C VHD and a D VHD - mimicing the 'real' setup. Now we are having second thoughts. Would there be anything gained/lost from having only one VHD with a C system partition and a D data partition as opposed to the current configuration using two VHD's? Is one model theoretically better than another in terms of performance, ease of backup, etc?
If it would be better theoretically to have a single VHD with a C partition and a D partition how would that be accomplished?
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Well I don't agree with this, and it technically isnt the actual main part of the original question, but since you asked this is how:
"(Make darn sure you have good back ups of both vhd's first.)"
Disable all services that look for data on that D Drive, i.e. if you have exchange databases or sql databases on that drive, disable the services
Disconnect the data vhd from the server, (be sure not to delete it).
Use vhd resizer from vmtoolkit.com (free), resize the main vhd, create another partition in the added space, change it's drive letter to D.
Then use VHD mount, and mount that other vhd, you will be able to see it , and copy from it just like if it was a drive, and copy your data into the new partition.
Disconnect the old data vhd from vhd mount, and set the services you previously disabled back to automatic, dont start them yet. reboot, all should be fine.
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by: mikeewaltonPosted on 2009-08-16 at 20:34:27ID: 25111507
I have always found it better to keep the Data on a separate drive then the system drive. I could give countless reasons why. The biggest being recovery, etc, in case something ever happens to that system drive. Now you bringing this question up also puts you in another state, you really don't want your data files, exchange databases, sql databases, etc in a vhd. Ive worked with both Hyper V and Xen server in allot of environments, and love them both to death, but is always better to leave the data outside the vhd. You'll see allot better speed. Ill give you an example, one instance is running a XEN 5.5 server, with the storage on a Dell Equallogic SAN, I have a SQLServer that is virtual, the I create a drive on the dell EQ, and attach it to the sql server, and house my databases in there. I have alot better speed, and if something happened to that virtual server, I have alot better recovery options, as I know it did not impact my sql databases.............But to answer your question here, yes keep them separate.